Monday, February 16, 2015

How many Edgar best novel winners have you read?

If it didn't become clear in my ode to Goodwill I am an avid thrift store book buyer. Two recent purchases got me thinking. I picked up a copy of Dangerous Ways by Jack Vance and California Girl by T Jefferson Parker. Dangerous Ways is a collection of three of Vance's mysteries and includes the novel The Man in the Cage which won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel by an American Author (ain't that a mouthful) in 1961. California Girl won the Edgar for Best Novel in 2005. I started to wonder how many Edgar winning books I've read, even if I just looked at one category, Best Novel.

Here is the list of Edgar Best Novel winners:

2014Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

2013Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

2012Gone by Mo Hayder

2011The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

2010The Last Child by John Hart

2009Blue Heaven by C. J. Box

2008Down River by John Hart

2007The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

2006Citizen Vince by Jess Walter

2005California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

2004Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

2003Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan

2002

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker

2001The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

2000Bones by Jan Burke

1999Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark

1998Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke

1997The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook

1996Come to Grief by Dick Francis

1995The Red Scream by Mary Willis Walker

1994The Sculptress by Minette Walters

1993Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron

1992A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block

1991New Orleans Mourning by Julie Smith

1990Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

1989A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky

1988Old Bones by Aaron Elkins

1987A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine

1986The Suspect by L.R. Wright

1985Briar Patch by Ross Thomas

1984La Brava by Elmore Leonard

1983Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer

1982Peregrine by William Bayer

1981Whip Hand by Dick Francis

1980The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling

1979The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

1978Catch Me: Kill Me by William H. Hallahan

1977Promised Land by Robert B. Parker

1976Hopscotch by Brian Garfield

1975Peter's Pence by Jon Cleary

1974Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman

1973The Lingala Code by Warren Kiefer

1972The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

1971The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo (Pantheon)

1970Forfeit by Dick Francis

1969A Case of Need by Jeffery Hudson

1968God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake

1967The King of the Rainy Country

1966The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall

1965The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre

1964The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

1963Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters

1962Gideon's Fire by J. J. Marric

1961The Progress of a Crime by Julian Symons

1960The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin

1959The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin

1958Room to Swing by Ed Lacy

1957A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong

1956Beast in View by Margaret Millar

1955The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

1954Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay

How many of these have you read? Is it a good representation of the genre for the last few decades?